How to Encourage Student Participation in Assignments Activities

UK’s academic standards have changed drastically over the last decade ad now only written assignments are not considered a proper parameter to judge the students’ capabilities. Instead today’s teachers are trying to assign activity-based tasks where students have to work, I team to complete eth assignments. It judges their learning and writing capabilities and at the same time polish their team work skills and communication skills. But not all students are willing to participate in assignment activities and hence teachers have to use some tactics to increase their involvements. So, here are a few tactics a strategy to encourage the student participation.

1.      Plan well

To increase the students’ participation in assignment activities, the teacher has to plan before assigning the tasks. This planning includes knowing each student’s capabilities, his/her skills, level of comfort with other students, and level of confidence. A teacher must plan how groups will be formed and how many members will join each other to work upon the assignments.

2.      Develop a connection

Students not only need to be connected with each other, but they should also be connected to the teacher for better participation. The first initiative you can take to make the students comfortable with you is to know their names so that a sense of relationships can be developed and students could feel recognized and valued. After knowing their name try to get brief introduction for better involvement as when students feel that a teacher know about them, they try to be more active in the class.

3.      Be polite

21^st century teaching methods are very different from the older ones and the teachers should stay aware that they cannot positively influence the students by being coercive or controlling. To positively influence the students and to increase their participation in assignment activities, teachers have to be very considerate of the students’ concern and need to be very polite. Forcefully getting the students’ attention for assignment activities can leave negative impact on their overall learning and can also decline the level of trust which is very important between students and teachers. Teachers have to listen to the students’ queries no matter how many times they ask and have to give satisfying answers to improve the learning and development. By ignoring the concerns, a teacher can promote ignorance and lack of interest which declines the students’ participation and hence it is integral to stay polite and responsive.

4.      Make groups wisely

The conflict between the students decline the productivity and learning. In order to ensure that all students are participating in assignment activities and are feeling collaborative and enjoying the work, you must make the groups wisely. It is not only important to group the students as per their demands. Instead what is important is to divide the students based on their capabilities. Every group needs to have students having diverse skills, like some should have good communication skills, some should be good at writing, some must be good at researching etc. By developing such balanced groups, a teacher can ensure better participation and there will be less risks of conflicts and contradictions.

5.      Gather feedback

As it is important to make your points clear to the students, it is also very important to listen to their points. As teacher one should be open to criticism or contradiction of opinion. If students are not comfortable with the groups made by the teacher or are not clear about the topic of the assignment, they must be allowed to share their feedback and teacher must facilitate them by being concerned with their problems and helping them in clarifying the topics, or any other group conflict or difficulty in assignment activities.

6.      Be fair

When reviewing their work and listening to their issues, a teacher needs to be very fair for all there must be no favoritism. By being biased teacher can decline the other students’ motivation level and that can decline their performance and participation. So, to enhance the students’ participation in assignment activities, it is integral to be fair and just and to avoid differentiation between the students. When students know that their teacher is going to judge them on the base of their hard work rather than favoritism, they try to be more engaged and participate with more eagerness to learn.

By following these tips you can improve your ability to keep the students engaged in assignment activities and can enhance their participation in each task which can positively contribute to their level of confidence and learning.

Author’s bio

Based on his years of experience in field of writing, author has written on various topic for Next Column. He has reviewed the quality and affordability of assignment writing services in UK, teaching tips, use of digital marketing, social media apps and many other informative topics.